Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine” By Rhiannon Downey
Naomi Klein is a Canadian award winning journalist, columnist and author of the international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Biography
Born in on May 5th, 1970 in Montreal, Klein comes from a family of activists, creating a basis of natural
Naomi Klein
curiosity, which lead to her phenomenal career as an author, journalist and activist. Her political family includes her mother, Bonnie Sherr Klein, the director of anti-pornography film Not A Love Story, her father, Michael Klein, a member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, and her brother, Seth Klein, the British Columbia Director of the Vancouver office of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.
Obsessed with advertisements and brand names as a child, Klein was dazzled by logos of many companies and the extensive products and merchandise they produced. But later on, realizing the extent of her interest in the capitalist society, she backlashed against her former self and took an interest in investigative journalism.
Naomi Klein began writing for The Varsity, a student newspaper at the University of Toronto, and wrote many controversial pieces on a wide range of issues, including international politics, gender visibility, local social justice, and social reform. Later, she left college and became an intern at the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. Where, following her internship, she became editor of This Magazine, a political magazine based in Toronto. Naomi Klein occasionally writes for the small political section of Toronto's entertainment and Arts free magazine "Now".
In 1995 she decided to go back to university to get her degree and there found a new association with a group of young radicals focused on globalization. Her friendship allowed her to gain new ideas on the massive globalization happening all around her. Klein then became a journalist and writer for The Nation and The Guardian.
In 2000 Klein’s prestige in non-fiction became known with her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, which became an international bestseller and phenomenon, winning both the Canadian National Business Book Award and the French Prix Mediations. She would publish more books and direct one documentary before her most well known and radically progressive book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
The Shock Doctrine
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein exposes the myth that the global free market achieved such triumph democratically. Klein describes the thinking, money trail and the puppet strings behind the world changing crises and wars of the last four decades, relating them all to the undercover scheme of capitalist economics. The Shock Doctrine tells how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and nations.
Naomi Klein takes on the views and actions of economist Milton Friedman, stating how the “free market” and other economic changes around the world, were not a result of people freely and democratically choosing these changes but of governments and coups forcing them on their people during a state of shock, after a significant disaster.
Based on historical research and on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism did not begin with September 11, 2001. It traces its origins back fifty years to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading conservative thinkers whose influence is still in Washington today. New connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock” warfare, and covert CIA experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation during the 50s.
Klein gives examples of September 11 and the “War on Terror” following it, the auction of pristine beaches to tourist resorts immediately after a tsunami wipes out the coast of Southeast Asia, etc. of examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters – to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy.
The Shock Doctrine applies these theories to contemporary history, showing how well-known events have ben deliberate acts of shock. For example: Pinochet's coup in Chile 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and the September 11th terrorist attack in 2001.
By Rhiannon Downey
Naomi Klein is a Canadian award winning journalist, columnist and author of the international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Biography
Born in on May 5th, 1970 in Montreal, Klein comes from a family of activists, creating a basis of natural
Obsessed with advertisements and brand names as a child, Klein was dazzled by logos of many companies and the extensive products and merchandise they produced. But later on, realizing the extent of her interest in the capitalist society, she backlashed against her former self and took an interest in investigative journalism.
Naomi Klein began writing for The Varsity, a student newspaper at the University of Toronto, and wrote many controversial pieces on a wide range of issues, including international politics, gender visibility, local social justice, and social reform. Later, she left college and became an intern at the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. Where, following her internship, she became editor of This Magazine, a political magazine based in Toronto. Naomi Klein occasionally writes for the small political section of Toronto's entertainment and Arts free magazine "Now".
In 1995 she decided to go back to university to get her degree and there found a new association with a group of young radicals focused on globalization. Her friendship allowed her to gain new ideas on the massive globalization happening all around her. Klein then became a journalist and writer for The Nation and The Guardian.
In 2000 Klein’s prestige in non-fiction became known with her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, which became an international bestseller and phenomenon, winning both the Canadian National Business Book Award and the French Prix Mediations. She would publish more books and direct one documentary before her most well known and radically progressive book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
The Shock Doctrine
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein exposes the myth that the global free market achieved such triumph democratically. Klein describes the thinking, money trail and the puppet strings behind the world changing crises and wars of the last four decades, relating them all to the undercover scheme of capitalist economics. The Shock Doctrine tells how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and nations.
Naomi Klein takes on the views and actions of economist Milton Friedman, stating how the “free market” and other economic changes around the world, were not a result of people freely and democratically choosing these changes but of governments and coups forcing them on their people during a state of shock, after a significant disaster.
Based on historical research and on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism did not begin with September 11, 2001. It traces its origins back fifty years to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading conservative thinkers whose influence is still in Washington today. New connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock” warfare, and covert CIA experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation during the 50s.
Klein gives examples of September 11 and the “War on Terror” following it, the auction of pristine beaches to tourist resorts immediately after a tsunami wipes out the coast of Southeast Asia, etc. of examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters – to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy.
The Shock Doctrine applies these theories to contemporary history, showing how well-known events have ben deliberate acts of shock. For example: Pinochet's coup in Chile 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and the September 11th terrorist attack in 2001.